Up for Debate: Council speaks out; state may compromise

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 2:12am

The Metro Council again voiced its disapproval of legislation that would allow a state charter authorizer to sidestep local authority in Davidson and Shelby counties. Ahead of a General Assembly vote on the bill, what (if any) compromise do you see on the issue?

171 Comments on this post:

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

I worked it into a tune, actually....and performed it live.

By:BenDover on 2/20/13 at 10:05

Abuse and corruption is not limited to the private sector loner.

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 10:09

I never said that it was, Ben.....please, no strawmen this morning.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 10:13

There's more pubs in Chicago, slacker.

By:BenDover on 2/20/13 at 10:13

Anything that makes our current 'justice' system more efficient and effective should be viewed with substantial skepticism. Our 'justice' system isn't in the business of discouraging crime it's in the business of increasing revenue and government expansion.

Same could be said of our public school system. The primary goal is no longer educating students but instead feeding the beast itself and appeasing the teachers' unions. Education will never be 'fixed' in metropolitan areas because failing schools are a feature of metropolitan governments. If not for 'the Chieeellllddrreeeen!" how else are they going to get a steady stream of tax rate increases?

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 10:23

Let me reiterate: Regulations, laws and treaties that keep our prisons humane and our military honorable do not apply to private, for-profit prisons, like CCA and to private, for-profit, mercenary outfits, like Blackwater. And those folks have certainly taken advantage of this.

Regulations, laws and citizen-oversight keep our public schools secular, affordable, accessible and inclusive....these controls would not apply to Charter Schools and their ilk. Human nature being what it is, Charter Schools will take advantage of this exemption too.

"Let's don't get fooled again..."

By:slacker on 2/20/13 at 10:26

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUbGLVvfB7Y

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 10:26

That's exactly my point as well, Loner!

By:slacker on 2/20/13 at 10:35

Loner, how about an oversight committee of Atheists?

By:BenDover on 2/20/13 at 10:36

"Let me reiterate: Regulations, laws and treaties that keep our prisons humane and our military honorable do not apply to private, for-profit prisons, like CCA and to private, for-profit, mercenary outfits, like Blackwater."

Yes they do.

By:slacker on 2/20/13 at 10:38

We can pass a: ''No Bibles In Car Trunks On Campus'' bill.

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 10:38

Ben sez so, ergo it must be true.

By:slacker on 2/20/13 at 10:42

Sounds plausible.. it could be true...

By:slacker on 2/20/13 at 10:44

But then again..

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 10:51

Ben: From Wiki...just for you:

UN October 2007 report

In October 2007 the United Nations released a two year study that stated that private contractors, although hired as "security guards", were performing military duties. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law; however, the United States is not a signatory of the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries.[52] Nor is the US a signatory of the 1977 additional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in which Article 47 specifies that mercenaries are civilians who "take a direct part in the hostilities" and are "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain."[53] (The Protocol makes no distinction between defensive and offensive actions, but the U.S. does make such a distinction, in that it does not regard defensive actions by security guards to be combat)[54]

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 10:55

If Blackwater was good enough for Junior Bush, it's good enough for his favorite fan, Ben Dover....still holding the torch for the Bush Dynasty.....waiting patiently for another son of a Bush to save the republic from democratic ruination.

By:brrrrk on 2/20/13 at 10:57

Always remember...... when profit is the motive, the product only improves when profit is threatened.

By:BenDover on 2/20/13 at 10:59

I don't see CCA mentioned anywhere in that UN report, loner.

What I do see is that an agent of a private security firm is in no way protected by his US citizenship from whatever a foreign government might consider inappropriate behavior. I would think 'collateral damage' is not a doctrine these security firms could hide behind like the sanctioned army of the US government.

I really don't know how CCA gets past the civil liability issues either. You'd think they'd be subject to endless litigation unlike the state who offers itself the advantage of caps on civil lawsuits.

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 11:05

Ben, my old friend, I can understand your approval of the Bush idea of privatizing combat troops...but you also support privatizing prisons too? Or do you simply oppose the guvmint monopoly on the criminal justice/corrections industry?

A lack of lawsuits against CCA is not a true indicator of innocence; after all, dead men don't sue....and their often poor families don't either.

By:pswindle on 2/20/13 at 11:09

Why have a local government if the state can come in and make all of the decisions?

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 11:15

“In the private prison, you would have fewer guards, for example,” he said. “You would have guards that are less experienced, who are paid less, who get fewer benefits. We constantly had new trainees coming through because their staff turnover rate was very high, which leads to more dangerous situations."

One of those dangerous situations was caught on a security camera at the Idaho Correctional Center, a private prison operated by CCA.

A study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the cost-savings promised by private prisons “have simply not materialized.”[24] Some research has concluded that for-profit prisons cost more than public prisons.[25] Furthermore, cost estimates from privatization advocates may be misleading, because private facilities often refuse to accept inmates that cost the most to house. A 2001 study concluded that a pattern of sending less expensive inmates to privately run facilities artificially inflated cost savings.[26] A 2005 study found that Arizona’s public facilities were seven times more likely to house violent offenders and three times more likely to house those convicted of more serious offenses.[27]

Evidence suggests that lower staff levels and training at private facilities may lead to increases in incidences of violence and escapes. A nationwide study found that assaults on guards by inmates were 49 percent more frequent in private prisons than in government-run prisons. The same study revealed that assaults on fellow inmates were 65 percent more frequent in private prisons.[28]

CCA and The GEO Group have been major contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Washington, D.C. based public policy organization that develops model legislation that advances free-market principles such as privatization. Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed model bills which State legislators can then consult when proposing “tough on crime” initiatives including “Truth in Sentencing” and “Three Strikes” laws. By funding and participating in ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Forces, critics argue, private prison companies directly influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.[29]

CCA and GEO have both engaged in state initiatives to increase sentences for offenders and to create new crimes, including, CCA helping to finance Proposition 6 in California in 2008 and GEO lobbying for Jessica's Law[30] in Kansas in 2006. The legal system may also be manipulated more directly: in the Kids for cash scandal, Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp, a private prison company was found guilty of paying two judges[31] $2.6m to send 2000 children to their prisons.[32][33]

By:BenDover on 2/20/13 at 11:25

I have said prisons should not benefit from the efficiencies of privatization, loner. I think it should be hideously expensive to society to incarcerate a person, to improve upon the and add more weight to any decision to do so.

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 11:34

So, you are NOT a supporter of publicly-financed, privatized, prisons, but you do support publicly-financed, privatized, combat troops and publicly-financed, privatized, education.....Corporate welfare is OK for Blackwater and Great Hearts, but not for CCA....am I right on that assessment, Ben?

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 11:35

Ben - I think it should be hideously expensive to society to incarcerate a person, to improve upon the and add more weight to any decision to do so.
====================================================
Would you explain what this is supposed to mean?

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 11:38

Ben is a faith-based guy; still believes in the dogma of "the efficiencies of privatization"...he will not be deterred from his beliefs by facts....he is an ideologue....but, dammit, he's OUR ideologue...so, we love him anyway.

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 11:48

Loner - Speak for yourself, IMO, I find him just like yogi & raspy, put anything for attention. Doesn't have to be facts, make sense or even pertain to the subject. Just get attention!

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 11:51

bfra, you forgot bud.

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 11:55

Blanket - That I did. She isn't as regular as the other 3, but where in the World do they get these outlandish fantasies?

By:brrrrk on 2/20/13 at 12:03

bfra said

"Blanket - That I did. She isn't as regular as the other 3, but where in the World do they get these outlandish fantasies?"

Loner is correct, it is a matter of faith.... and like all matter's of faith it is constructed from a mythology that has no basis in fact. Almost every claim coming from the right about the advantages of privatization have been disproved... and especially in the areas of public services.

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 12:07

brrrrk - Some have been disproved in so many ways & the kooks still splatter them across the board every chance they get. Why wouldn't any sane person think they are either stupid or just plain nuts? Or like I said, just want attention?

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 12:08

Well, Bfra, all men are brothers and all women are sisters, we are supposed to love one another...one big happy family of hominids on a mudball in space.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 12:09

Loner, pass the pipe! I want some of that! LOL

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 12:11

Loner - That still doesn't mean we have to swallow every kooky idea the trolls put on the board. I was going to add something else, but for the sake of peace at the moment, I didn't.

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 12:18

It's just schwag this morning, Bn...the Sour D is gone...but it's good schwag...Kum-By-Yah....can't we all just get a bong?

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 12:19

LOL

By:Captain Nemo on 2/20/13 at 12:19

I have faith that people will screw up, both public and private.

By:Loner on 2/20/13 at 12:20

We don't have to swallow the kooky stuff, Bfra....I agree....but we should spit it back out with class and dignity....IMO.

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 12:24

Loner - Never mastered the art of spitting! :-)

By:Blanketnazi2 on 2/20/13 at 12:24

Nothin' like classy spitting.

By:slacker on 2/20/13 at 12:28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct3CcR3c4oM

By:bfra on 2/20/13 at 12:30

Blanket - LOL My 2 grandsons think that is the ultimate "boy" thing. And, they try to see which one can be the classiest.